How useful is fast healing, exactly?

[Pinkie Pyro]

As most people in the playground should know, healing in combat is a waste of actions, unless you are able to out heal all incoming damage, and even then, it's not the best thing you could be doing, most of the time.

however, when we get to fast healing, it doesn't require an action, it's constant, and it means you always go into battle with full HP, even with measly fast healing 1. but beyond that, are there any real benefits to anything less than a stupid high amount of fast healing?

for magic item's sakes, a pearl of at-will cure minor wounds costs 2000 GP, and you can fully heal everyone outside of combat, or you can get a continuous lesser vigor necklace for 8000 GP. both of these would give the PC full health whenever they re-entered combat (Assuming it takes a couple minutes between fights, at any rate). the big question: is it ever really worth the 6000 extra GP just to get back 1 HP during combat?

[SinsI]

It's good in battles of attrition; it also auto-stabilizes you.

[Fax Celestis]

Battles are generally far too short for fast healing to provide any sort of competent defense: it's basically acting like very slow DR/-. Its best use is topping off after a fight for no resource cost, and its second best use is automatically stabilizing you when you die (which will happen if you rely on a terrible defense like fast healing).

[Mithril Leaf]

Pretty much not worth it if you only have 1. If you get to around 20 it starts being actually useful.

[ericgrau]

Battles are generally far too short for fast healing to provide any sort of competent defense: it's basically acting like very slow DR/-. Its best use is topping off after a fight for no resource cost, and its second best use is automatically stabilizing you when you die (which will happen if you rely on a terrible defense like fast healing).

Pretty much this. As a rule of thumb I multiply per round abilities by 3. You usually don't get hit before your turn in round 1. So multiply by 2 instead. It's like having about that much extra hp. And it's free healing between fights which is worth a little gp per fight but not much.

[Phelix-Mu]

Decently useful out-of-combat for conserving resources, topping off and such.

Practically worthless in combat unless the value is quite high. The aforementioned 20 isn't a bad place to put it at, though at lower levels, you could probably get by with 10.

[SinsI]

Battles are generally far too short for fast healing to provide any sort of competent defense: it's basically acting like very slow DR/-. Its best use is topping off after a fight for no resource cost, and its second best use is automatically stabilizing you when you die (which will happen if you rely on a terrible defense like fast healing).

It depends on the type of battle. As we've recently seen in OOTS, Durkon vs an Army of Mooks profited extensively from having fast healing: only criticals can get past his DR, and those are healed by his Fast Healing.
So if you are hit with lots of low-damage attacks that are mostly mitigated by your DR, Fast Healing is at least decent.

[Fax Celestis]

It depends on the type of battle. As we've recently seen in OOTS, Durkon vs an Army of Mooks profited extensively from having fast healing: only criticals can get past his DR, and those are healed by his Fast Healing.
So if you are hit with lots of low-damage attacks that are mostly mitigated by your DR, Fast Healing is at least decent.

And when, pray tell, was the last time you had one of these combats?

[Phelix-Mu]

And when, pray tell, was the last time you had one of these combats?

Well, actually, setting up a combat like that is a piece of cake. Find a bunch of enemies that vastly outnumber you, and attack; if you picked the right type of enemy (READ: a weak type), then it should be quite the slog-fest.

The real problem is that long, drawn-out combats suffer terribly from irl fatigue. Running a 20 round combat at all but the lowest of levels is going to take a great deal of irl time, and largely be mindlessly repetitive. At higher levels, even 10 rounds can take several hours if the players haven't streamlined their schtick at that point, or if the enemy has a bunch of special abilities.

So, it's more of a structural problem with the game than a numbers issue.

[Pinkie Pyro]

glad to see so many responses. I've been asking because I've been trying to figure out how much to charge PCs for fast healing, currently I'm thinking bonus squared X 500 GP, + 7500 GP. anyone have any thoughts on that?

[Phelix-Mu]

glad to see so many responses. I've been asking because I've been trying to figure out how much to charge PCs for fast healing, currently I'm thinking bonus squared X 500 GP, + 7500 GP. anyone have any thoughts on that?

I am far from expert on magic item pricing, but that seems awfully high. Suffice it to say that an item of Fast Healing 2 is probably not worth almost 10k gp. Maybe reduce it to +5000gp.

It does save up on wand use in the long run, so I guess that might justify a high price.

[Curmudgeon]

I've been trying to figure out how much to charge PCs for fast healing, currently I'm thinking bonus squared X 500 GP, + 7500 GP. anyone have any thoughts on that?
Seems awfully cheap for something that takes an Epic feat to attain.

[Phelix-Mu]

You could probably price it as an at will use item of one of the vigor line of spells from the Spell Compendium. Constant effect is a bit more of a markup beyond that, so I'd just calculate the at will item and eyeball it upward from there.

Fast Healing is pretty piss-poor for an epic feat, imho. Of course, so are many of the epic feats, especially those for melee and ranged mundane combat. *sigh*

[SinsI]

Continuous item of lesser vigor is 1*1*2000*4 = 8000 gp.
So your Fast Healing 1 is OK.
Higher levels are more problematic - i.e. Greater Vigor is 5*11 = 55 times more expensive for just Fast Healing 4.
Vigor is 3*5 = 15 times more expensive for Fast Healing 2.

[Pinkie Pyro]

Seems awfully cheap for something that takes an Epic feat to attain.

As this thread discusses, it's a pretty piss poor epic feat :P

I mostly did the +7500 to keep it in line with continuous lesser vigor.

and it makes it so that FH 20 is 207500 gold, and fast healing five is 20000, I think those are good prices. fast healing 2 would just be a waste, so I'm not really worried about that.

[Immabozo]

I am far from expert on magic item pricing, but that seems awfully high. Suffice it to say that an item of Fast Healing 2 is probably not worth almost 10k gp. Maybe reduce it to +5000gp.

It does save up on wand use in the long run, so I guess that might justify a high price.

I agree, that seems like a little much.

I know, the only time I had fast healing on a toon, it was delicious, delicious free icing on my wildshaping druid cake.

It was a Master of Many Form and took a war troll shape... but that was regeneration, not fast healing, but it was still very fun! DR plus regeneration, plus high natural armor and great stats and a few cool abilities. It was good times.

EDIT: Nat armor +19, DR 5/adamantine, DR 3/-, regen 9/acid (not fire), SR 20 and nice stats. Was a very, very fine form to take!

[georgie_leech]

Seems awfully cheap for something that takes an Epic feat to attain.

An Epic feat is also worth +1 [ability]. You can get a +2 for 4000, so I'm not sure that's the best metric to go by.

[Drachasor]

FH 1 is probably worth less than 6000 gold, imho. That's less than 10 Wands of CLW (and granted you do need someone to use the wands). It does almost nothing in combat, but tops you off after.

FH 5 like others have said, is probably like having 10-15 extra HP, which doesn't always mean anything. This does mean a lot at lower levels though.

Really you'd want something like RH 10-20 before it made a big deal IN combat. At least after level 10 or so.

[Rubik]

I know, the only time I had fast healing on a toon, it was delicious, delicious free icing on my wildshaping druid cake.Do you play Loony Tunes characters?

If not, that just sounds [redacted] ridiculous.

[Theomniadept]

I've always been a fan of DMM Persistent Mass Lesser Vigor until you hit the point where you can do DMM Persistent Vigorous Circle. Sure it's only FH 1 and FH 3 respectively, but it's effectively an out of battle fullheal and an in-battle auto-stabilize for the price of Turn Undead attempts.

[Pinkie Pyro]

ok, well if everyone feels like it's too much, then the new question becomes:

how much do you think FH 20 is worth?

[ericgrau]

I think it's worth about 40 hp. Maybe 60-80 if you build around it and get a little DR, energy resistance, AC and saves (but don't go overboard, or it could become a trap). Which is quite a lot. But fast healing 20 is hard to get.

[Phelix-Mu]

ok, well if everyone feels like it's too much, then the new question becomes:

how much do you think FH 20 is worth?

It'd have to be pretty spanking awesome if it costs more than 100k and doesn't actually make you better at killing an enemy.

[Shalist]

Worth noting for comparison, MIC (pg 20) has the relic, 'millennial chainmail,' which is a +1 mithril chainmail that gives fast heal 3 for 8150g.

[Rubik]

Outside of the fights themselves, higher amounts of fast healing have severely diminishing returns. Basically, regardless of level, so long as the injured character has a few minutes between fights, fast healing 1 is just as valuable as fast healing 20, and most fights are over fast enough so that you only gain 2-3 (MAYBE 4) rounds to use it while actually in danger, since, as stated, most character archetypes usually go through a round or two uninjured before they can start making use of it.

So, yeah. Higher levels of fast healing really aren't that good until you start getting into meat-grinder sessions where it's long, protracted battles with no downtime whatsoever, in which case, you'll want to be using things like Heal spells even with fast healing.

[Phelix-Mu]

Worth noting for comparison, MIC (pg 20) has the relic, 'millennial chainmail,' which is a +1 mithril chainmail that gives fast heal 3 for 8150g.

Also worth noting that relics are scandalously underpriced compared to normal items that use the normal construction mechanics. Always wished this wasn't true, but, eh, whatever.

It is a good relative price point, though. Non-relic FH should be more, but I can't see it being much more than 2-3 times more.

[Baroknik]

I do want to mention that fast healing is especially efficient on crusaders as it has great synergy with their delayed damage pool.

[Rubik]

I do want to mention that fast healing is especially efficient on crusaders as it has great synergy with their delayed damage pool.It also works better on those with Share Pain or Shield Other up. Taking half damage means you gain twice as much effective benefit from healing, since each point of damage you take counts for each 2 you otherwise would.

Much like DR and hardness, actually, now that I think about it.

[Pinkie Pyro]

Outside of the fights themselves, higher amounts of fast healing have severely diminishing returns. Basically, regardless of level, so long as the injured character has a few minutes between fights, fast healing 1 is just as valuable as fast healing 20, and most fights are over fast enough so that you only gain 2-3 (MAYBE 4) rounds to use it while actually in danger, since, as stated, most character archetypes usually go through a round or two uninjured before they can start making use of it.

So, yeah. Higher levels of fast healing really aren't that good until you start getting into meat-grinder sessions where it's long, protracted battles with no downtime whatsoever, in which case, you'll want to be using things like Heal spells even with fast healing.

we've established that, that's why I'm trying to figure out how much it is worth for in combat situations. 1 or 20 barely matters outside of combat, but it's always better to have 20 than 1 in combat. I'm just trying to figure out a decent cost. 200,000 k is super high, now that I double checked the WBL table.

[TuggyNE]

Seems awfully cheap for something that takes an Epic feat to attain.

You can get something awfully similar to Armor Skin for bonus2 * 2000gp.
You can get a knock-off version of Great <Ability> for the aforementioned bonus2 * 1000gp.

You can get Energy Resistance for 12/28/44000gp.
You can get a rather better version of Blinding Speed for 12000gp.
You can get a substantially superior version of Perfect Health for about 32550gp.
You can get an initially better version of Self-Concealment for 24000gp.

As such, paying 12000gp for one instance of Fast Healing does not seem particularly unreasonable, and paying 48000gp for three instances is pretty well in line too.

[Baroknik]

we've established that, that's why I'm trying to figure out how much it is worth for in combat situations. 1 or 20 barely matters outside of combat, but it's always better to have 20 than 1 in combat. I'm just trying to figure out a decent cost. 200,000 k is super high, now that I double checked the WBL table.

You could make it FH 1 permanently, with the ability to spend a (swift?) action x/day to boost it to 20.

Or make it a daily charge like in MIC
1 charge: FH 1 for 12 hours
2 charge: FH 10 for 1 hour
3 charges: FH 25 for 10 minutes

Something like that?

[ericgrau]

glad to see so many responses. I've been asking because I've been trying to figure out how much to charge PCs for fast healing, currently I'm thinking bonus squared X 500 GP, + 7500 GP. anyone have any thoughts on that?
First the between battle healing ability is worth about a couple wands of CLW tops, about 1500 gp. More than that and you'd rather just buy a wand now rather than waiting 5 levels to get your money back on healing.

We'll assume the owner optimizes a little and gets about 3 rounds from it. At level 6 you might get a +2 con item for 4000 gp providing 12 hp (and about 300 gp worth of saving throws). That comes to 4 hp per round, so fast healing 4. At level 14 you might get a +4 con item for 16000 gp providing 28 hp and about 1300 gp worth of saving throws. That's worth about fast healing 9. 3700/4^2~=230. 14700 /9^2~=180. So let's say about bonus^2*200+1500. Fast healing 20 would be crazy expensive at mid level, but so are all high bonus items. You don't get high bonus items at mid level. It comes to 81,500 gp btw. I think high optimization might put it as low as half as much, while if you wanted to be conservative in a low optimization game you might go as high as 50% more for 120k.

[Tanuki Tales]

Something to keep in mind is that you can burn a feat to get Fast Healing 1. It only functions when you're below half health, but it's still Fast Healing 1.

I've always been in the camp that the value of Fast Healing and Damage Reduction is grossly overstated and overestimated in general. I haven't really found a fix for the former, but the latter I've house ruled (along with energy resistance) to just cut the damage source(s) in half. It cuts down how potentially broken DR in sufficient amounts can be at lower levels, but keeps it relevant when the meatstick is throwing out hundreds upon hundreds of damage.

[Fax Celestis]

I've found a good fix for energy resistance to be making it a per-die value rather than a per-instance: Fire Resist 1 reduces a 10d6 fireball by 10 points, but a 5d6 fireball by 5, both to a minimum of 1 point per die. More than 3 resist is a pretty huge deal, and 6 is basically immunity, but I also include a bunch of +1 damage/die effects to counteract.

Doesn't quite work with DR, unfortunately.

[Chronos]

Quoth Pinkie Pyro:

for magic item's sakes, a pearl of at-will cure minor wounds costs 2000 GP, and you can fully heal everyone outside of combat, or you can get a continuous lesser vigor necklace for 8000 GP.
Sure, if your DM is houseruling them to be that cheap, as is his prerogative, but according to the custom item creation guidelines in the DMG, either of those items would cost hundreds of thousands of GP.

[Tanuki Tales]

I've found a good fix for energy resistance to be making it a per-die value rather than a per-instance: Fire Resist 1 reduces a 10d6 fireball by 10 points, but a 5d6 fireball by 5, both to a minimum of 1 point per die. More than 3 resist is a pretty huge deal, and 6 is basically immunity, but I also include a bunch of +1 damage/die effects to counteract.

Doesn't quite work with DR, unfortunately.

I had toyed with an idea like that before deciding that just cutting damage in half for both of them would streamline better in regards to simplicity. But more research is definitely required in that regard.

And I have no clue what I want to do with Hardness.

[nedz]

Worth noting for comparison, MIC (pg 20) has the relic, 'millennial chainmail,' which is a +1 mithril chainmail that gives fast heal 3 for 8150g.

Well Relics also cost you a feat or a spell slot; and there might be religious restrictions.

[Zaq]

I've found a good fix for energy resistance to be making it a per-die value rather than a per-instance: Fire Resist 1 reduces a 10d6 fireball by 10 points, but a 5d6 fireball by 5, both to a minimum of 1 point per die. More than 3 resist is a pretty huge deal, and 6 is basically immunity, but I also include a bunch of +1 damage/die effects to counteract.

Doesn't quite work with DR, unfortunately.

Perhaps multiply stated DR by your character level (or HD), or perhaps by half your HD if that's too much? Just throwing that out there. You'll have to balance sources of DR with that in mind, but it means that it still won't be an absolutely trivial amount.

[Baroknik]

we've established that, that's why I'm trying to figure out how much it is worth for in combat situations. 1 or 20 barely matters outside of combat, but it's always better to have 20 than 1 in combat. I'm just trying to figure out a decent cost. 200,000 k is super high, now that I double checked the WBL table.


I've found a good fix for energy resistance to be making it a per-die value rather than a per-instance: Fire Resist 1 reduces a 10d6 fireball by 10 points, but a 5d6 fireball by 5, both to a minimum of 1 point per die. More than 3 resist is a pretty huge deal, and 6 is basically immunity, but I also include a bunch of +1 damage/die effects to counteract.

Doesn't quite work with DR, unfortunately.

I may implement something like that -- what was your conversion? 5:1?

One thing it hate wrt DR is that good things tend to have DR/evil (and the reverse). Now a lot of times that makes sense... But with angels and demons? Shouldn't a planetar take less damage from an imp than from another angel? I house ruled most extraplanars to have DR/[their own alignment]. If an angel is attacked by another truly good being -- there's probably a reason for it. Now to compensate I also give them weakness vs [their opposing alignment].

For example, I major planetar ssr 10/good, but give them weakness to evil. The thought being that if something can start to corrupt them, it does even more damage -- but they have some initial resistance. Note that in this case I calculate the weakness damage AFTER the DR applies.

Any thoughts?

[Fax Celestis]

Perhaps multiply stated DR by your character level (or HD), or perhaps by half your HD if that's too much? Just throwing that out there. You'll have to balance sources of DR with that in mind, but it means that it still won't be an absolutely trivial amount.

Well, I do already generally use Hero Value (which is 1/2 your level, plus rare and difficult to get bonuses), and I do key a lot of things off of it (you get HV to AC, save DCs (even for spells) are 10 + HV + stat, energy drain is replaced with HV damage, etc). That might be a good solution for DR: DR 1/- means DR HV/-, while DR 2/adamantine means DR 2*HV/adamantine.


I may implement something like that -- what was your conversion? 5:1?Yeah, thereabouts.

I also provide means to break immunities and replace them with relevant resist 6.

[Petrocorus]

Continuous item of lesser vigor is 1*1*2000*4 = 8000 gp.
So your Fast Healing 1 is OK.
Higher levels are more problematic - i.e. Greater Vigor is 5*11 = 55 times more expensive for just Fast Healing 4.
Vigor is 3*5 = 15 times more expensive for Fast Healing 2.

Why exactly is there a *4? isn't it supposed to be spell level * caster level * 2000 gp for continuous items?

[Siosilvar]

Why exactly is there a *4? isn't it supposed to be spell level * caster level * 2000 gp for continuous items?

Because of the footnote:


3. If a continuous item has an effect based on a spell with a duration measured in rounds, multiply the cost by 4. If the duration of the spell is 1 minute/level, multiply the cost by 2, and if the duration is 10 minutes/level, multiply the cost by 1.5. If the spell has a 24-hour duration or greater, divide the cost in half.

[Pinkie Pyro]

Speaking of DR/hit die, DR%, and ER/hit die, how much more useful would fast healing be if it likewise gave a % or a bonus per hit die?

For DR, I tend to do DR% or DR#, whichever would block more damage.




I may implement something like that -- what was your conversion? 5:1?

One thing it hate wrt DR is that good things tend to have DR/evil (and the reverse). Now a lot of times that makes sense... But with angels and demons? Shouldn't a planetar take less damage from an imp than from another angel? I house ruled most extraplanars to have DR/[their own alignment]. If an angel is attacked by another truly good being -- there's probably a reason for it. Now to compensate I also give them weakness vs [their opposing alignment].

For example, I major planetar ssr 10/good, but give them weakness to evil. The thought being that if something can start to corrupt them, it does even more damage -- but they have some initial resistance. Note that in this case I calculate the weakness damage AFTER the DR applies.

Any thoughts?

I tend to do it like that too, resistance to the opposite alignment. otherwise, what's the point of having a resistance to everything but your enemies?

[Yogibear41]

Personally, I would rather have 5 fast healing than 20 hp any day of the week, if you play smart and plan your fights ahead of time(when you can) there is no reason you cannot use some sort of hit and run tactics or the terrain or something else to draw the fight out longer.

This of course is from the reference of fighting normal things and not some high-powered super optimized wizard killing machine, which if its played right is probably going to kill you anyway.

[ericgrau]

Hard to get your party to play along though and sync the run part. Maybe if all 4 of you had fast healing 5.

Actually I once had a half-troll with fast healing 5. It was nice until about level 5 or so. I did try to flee and recuperate when low, but the monsters were not cooperative.

[SinsI]

In-combat usefulness of Fast Healing depends on average damage per round that enemies deal to you. Sometimes an optimized tank can get AC high enough to effectively reduce damage done to him by x10-x20. So you don't need FH 20 for it to be really useful - even something like FH 3 or 5 can effectively double or triple your health.

[Tanuki Tales]

This of course is from the reference of fighting normal things and not some high-powered super optimized wizard killing machine, which if its played right is probably going to kill you anyway.

A printed Fire Giant is going to be doing, on average, 76 damage every full-attack action, without factoring in Power Attack. Its damage distribution is 48 to 99 on that full-attack action (again, without Power Attack). If you managed to get combat running so it can't full-attack, it only averages 25 damage and has a distribution from 18 to 33.

That's a CR 10 creature that is far from optimized and a level 10 character can be killed by that kind of damage output if it's allowed to connect.

[SowZ]

It depends on the type of battle. As we've recently seen in OOTS, Durkon vs an Army of Mooks profited extensively from having fast healing: only criticals can get past his DR, and those are healed by his Fast Healing.
So if you are hit with lots of low-damage attacks that are mostly mitigated by your DR, Fast Healing is at least decent.

Do you mean the immune to criticals vampire Durkon, or did I miss something.

[ericgrau]

In-combat usefulness of Fast Healing depends on average damage per round that enemies deal to you. Sometimes an optimized tank can get AC high enough to effectively reduce damage done to him by x10-x20. So you don't need FH 20 for it to be really useful - even something like FH 3 or 5 can effectively double or triple your health.

You... you really expect to draw the fight out to 20-30 rounds with tanking? :smallconfused:

Even if you could, and keep the party from getting hurt too, they already won the fight 12 rounds ago thanks to your insane full party nigh-invincibility ability. You still don't need FH.

[SinsI]

You... you really expect to draw the fight out to 20-30 rounds with tanking? :smallconfused:

Even if you could, and keep the party from getting hurt too, they already won the fight 12 rounds ago thanks to your insane full party nigh-invincibility ability. You still don't need FH.
Let's say you need to defend a bottleneck point that can only be attacked by one opponent at a time from an overwhelming army of enemies.
Or your tank is out in the open field, serving as a bait while the rest of the party buffs up and prepares to ambush your enemies that are drawn out into an easily attacked position.


Do you mean the immune to criticals vampire Durkon, or did I miss something.

Vampires are not immune to criticals. (unless they are in gaseous form)

[Tanuki Tales]

Vampires are not immune to criticals. (unless they are in gaseous form)

3.5 Vampires are, being undead and all.

[Dr. Cliché]

Vampires are not immune to criticals.

Why not? :smallconfused:

[SowZ]

Let's say you need to defend a bottleneck point that can only be attacked by one opponent at a time from an overwhelming army of enemies.
Or your tank is out in the open field, serving as a bait while the rest of the party buffs up and prepares to ambush your enemies that are drawn out into an easily attacked position.



Vampires are not immune to criticals. (unless they are in gaseous form)
I don't see anything specifying that in the creature entry, so shouldn't it default to the Undead creature type? Point me to a ruling or SRD link if you would, please.

[SinsI]

I don't see anything specifying that in the creature entry, so shouldn't it default to the Undead creature type? Point me to a ruling or SRD link if you would, please.

Ah, yes, my mistake. Somehow assumed "no mention" = "not immune"

[Segev]

A command-activated item of Lesser Vigor would be 1800 gp, and last for 11 rounds for 11 points of healing each time you spend a standard action activating it.

Vigor would be 27,000 gp for command-activated. 2 hp/round for 15 rounds.

Greater Vigor would be 81000 gp, for 4 hp/round for 19 rounds.

If you make the Lesser Vigor item intelligent, it adds at least 500 gp (going with PF version of intelligent items), but oculd be convinced to activate itself every time it wears off.

[Rubik]

Ah, yes, my mistake. Somehow assumed "no mention" = "not immune"Vamps are dusted by a stake through the heart or cutting off the head, I believe, which means they're one of the very few undead where "critical weak points" work, though they're still immune to crits even so.

[Tanuki Tales]

Vamps are dusted by a stake through the heart or cutting off the head, I believe, which means they're one of the very few undead where "critical weak points" work, though they're still immune to crits even so.

Stake through the heart is only mostly dead, not all the way dead. As soon as you pull it out, they jump right back up.

[Yogibear41]

A printed Fire Giant is going to be doing, on average, 76 damage every full-attack action, without factoring in Power Attack. Its damage distribution is 48 to 99 on that full-attack action (again, without Power Attack). If you managed to get combat running so it can't full-attack, it only averages 25 damage and has a distribution from 18 to 33.

That's a CR 10 creature that is far from optimized and a level 10 character can be killed by that kind of damage output if it's allowed to connect.

It also only has a speed of 30 (40 if wearing no armor) and cannot fly.

[Tanuki Tales]

It also only has a speed of 30 (40 if wearing no armor) and cannot fly.

And that rebukes my comment concerning Fast Healing 5 meaning squat if you get hit how?

They also have rock throwing.

If you want to start adding context to try and make Fast Healing 5 look good, you end up defeating your own point since you would need sufficient buffs or party members as to render having Fast Healing in the first place null. Don't need to heal yourself if the God Wizard and CoDzilla have already turned the dials down to "Easy Mode".

[SinsI]

A printed Fire Giant is going to be doing, on average, 76 damage every full-attack action, without factoring in Power Attack. Its damage distribution is 48 to 99 on that full-attack action (again, without Power Attack). If you managed to get combat running so it can't full-attack, it only averages 25 damage and has a distribution from 18 to 33.

That's a CR 10 creature that is far from optimized and a level 10 character can be killed by that kind of damage output if it's allowed to connect.

Adequately protected tank will have at least AC of 20 + level.
Against AC 30 Fire Giant will hit on full attack on 10+/on 15+/on 20.
This means, that on average he will be making less than 20.4 damage per round (and Power Attack will actually make it worse for him).
If you manage to improve it to, say, AC35, he'll hit you on 15+/20/20, dealing ~9 damage/round.
In that case Fast Healing 5 will be an enormous boon, effectively acting better than DR 14.

[Tanuki Tales]

Adequately protected tank will have at least AC of 20 + level.
Against AC 30 Fire Giant will hit on full attack on 10+/on 15+/on 20.
This means, that on average he will be making less than 20.4 damage per round (and Power Attack will actually make it worse for him).
If you manage to improve it to, say, AC35, he'll hit you on 15+/20/20, dealing ~9 damage/round.
In that case Fast Healing 5 will be an enormous boon, effectively acting better than DR 14.

A tank that maximizes AC at level 10 is doomed to die. Seriously, AC stops mattering pretty early on and you're better off going for miss chances.

My point was how a non-optimized, CR 10 beatstick can deal damage that renders Fast Healing 5 moot, if it connects.

[SinsI]

A tank that maximizes AC at level 10 is doomed to die. Seriously, AC stops mattering pretty early on and you're better off going for miss chances.

My point was how a non-optimized, CR 10 beatstick can deal damage that renders Fast Healing 5 moot, if it connects.

It's not optimizing. 30 AC at lvl 10 is easy to acquire for less than half your WBL, and without any strange tricks - or even the casters help!
And you can easily add another +5 from, say, Combat Expertise, or any number of spells that your casters can use to help you.

http://aaronwiki.us/index.php?title=Armor_Class_Guide

[Tanuki Tales]

It's not optimizing.

I said maximize. I already know boosting your AC is suboptimal as a defensive measure. :smallwink:

[SinsI]

I said maximize. I already know boosting your AC is suboptimal as a defensive measure. :smallwink:

That AC is not even close to maximize. Sure, you are using the weak sword-and-board style so you won't be one-shotting him like Ubercharger, but you are also not risking being one-shot yourself, either.